The day my lecture on free speech got shut down by the fire alarm

I was mid-sentence in a campus talk two weeks ago about how universities handle controversial speakers when the fire alarm went off. Everyone had to file out into the cold for 20 minutes while we waited for the all-clear. When we got back inside, half the audience had left. I just stood there with my notes feeling like the whole point got derailed. It made me wonder how often real campus debates get killed by petty distractions or rules. Has anyone else had their moment for open discussion completely wrecked by something stupid like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

alex52416d ago

petty distractions" is a wild way to describe a fire alarm lol

gavin_kim315d ago

My buddy Jake was at a tech conference in Austin. Fire alarm goes off at 2pm. Everyone sighs and shuffles outside. Turns out some guy was vaping in a server room and set off the whole system. They lost like 45 minutes of panel time. He got kicked out. That's not a distraction, that's a full on disaster for the organizers.